no one will be there

~iazia

Yesterday, I was running errands for my mother, and it required me to drive down a particular road to get to where I needed to go. I've driven down this road hundreds of times before, and have never given it much thought. On this road is a party hall, one of hundreds I see when I drive around the area. This one has been around since I was a child, possibly before I was even born. My clearest memory of this hall, however, wasn't from all the times I've driven by it. It was of the one time I was inside the hall itself, for my high school best friend's sweet sixteen.

This had to have been 2009, so a junior in high school. I remember having the time of my life, joking with all my friends. I remember they played I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas, and everyone lost their minds and tore the dancefloor up. I remember I fell in love with a boy for the first time in my life. Even if the memories are now faded and I can't quite recall everything with ease like before, I remember that feeling of falling in love. It's not one I've experienced often.

Anyway, as I was idling by the building, the song I Gotta Feeling was winding down. I realized where I was and looked up to see the building, just with that sense of nostalgia hitting me. Admittedly, I hadn't been down this road recently, maybe in the past few months, so I was shocked to see it was now in the process of being torn down. The doors and windows were boarded up. There was fencing around the property, and a truck waiting outside, as the process to remove anything inside was just starting.

I don't know why I was surprised by my reaction. I suppose a normal reaction would have been a sad sigh, or just me sitting in the car and musing to myself about the irony of it all, to hear the song ending and see the building in the process of being torn down. Instead, I felt my heart leap and my eyes beginning to water up. I ended up driving to the nearest parking lot I could and started balling my eyes out. I had a headache when I got back home, and a nosebleed right after.

These past few months and years, I've been smothered with nostalgia. I think we all have been, and why not? For so many of us, it's been a terrible decade. For me, my life was upended in ways I never anticipated, and I won't lie and act like I don't wish I could go back in time to when I was younger and more carefree. No one else would be there, though. And I think that's partly why I cried the way I did. I don't talk to most of the people I went to that sweet sixteen with. I don't remember what the inside looks like, just bits and pieces. I have the name of that boy I fell in love with carved into the flesh of my mind, but I don't know where he lives or what he does for a living or even if he's still alive. I don't even have the option to reach out to him anymore - as far as I know, he deleted all of his social media years ago. I kind of wonder if I'm some phantom for him like he is for me. I'm not quite sure I am.

Anyway. Pouring one out for these memories tonight, barkeep.